Peace, Love, Joy, and Imagination…

On May 2, 1968, in an outpost near the Cambodian border, Sergeant Benavidez listened to his short-wave radio as the voice of a terrified American, part of a 12-man patrol that had been completely surrounded by a North Vietnamese battalion, pleaded to be rescued. Armed with only a knife, Benavidez immediately jumped into a helicopter and took off with a three man crew to rescue his trapped comrades.

When they arrived at the fighting, the enemy was too numerous for the helicopter to immediately evacuate the surrounded soldiers. It had to land seventy-five yards away from their position. After making the sign of the cross, Sergeant Benavidez jumped out of the helicopter as it hovered ten feet above the ground, and began to run toward his comrades carrying his knife and a medic bag.

He was shot almost immediately, but he got up and kept moving. An exploding grenade knocked him down again, shrapnel tearing into his face. He got up and kept moving. Reaching the Americans’ position, he found four men dead, and all the others badly wounded. He armed himself with an enemy rifle, and began to treat the wounded, distribute ammunition and call in air strikes. He was shot again. He then ordered the helicopter to come in closer as he dragged the dead and wounded aboard. After he got all of the wounded aboard, he ran back to retrieve classified documents from the body of a fallen soldier. He was shot in the stomach, and grenade fragments cut into his back. He got up and kept moving, and he made it back to the helicopter.

But the pilot was shot and the helicopter crashed. Benavidez pulled the wounded from the wreckage and radioed for air strikes and another helicopter. He kept fighting until air support arrived. He was shot several more times before a second helicopter landed. As he was carrying a wounded man toward it, a North Vietnamese soldier clubbed him with his rifle and stabbed him with a bayonet. Sergeant Benavidez fought him to death, hand to hand. After rescuing three more of his comrades, he was
finally flown with them to safety.

Bleeding profusely, his intestines spilling from his stomach wounds, and completely immobile, a doctor thought him to be dead. Roy was placed in a body bag, before the doctor discovered he was still alive (when Roy Benavidez spat on his face).

Miraculously, he survived, but spent a year in hospitals recovering from seven serious gunshot wounds, twenty-eight shrapnel wounds, and bayonet wounds in both arms.